AM2 is old tech, finding a AM2 would be difficult at best.
as for backwards compatability, im not sure, i thought an AM3 board could use an AM2 cpu, but not the other way round.
besides, a AM2 board would bottleneck an AM3 like crazy, wouldnt be worth it.
if you're considering getting a new board and cpu, you dont need to go AM3, just get what you can for your price range, 100$ for a board is mid range/new tech, pretty sure you could get a low spec AM3/i3 setup for a fair bit less than that.
but if you're running an AM2 setup atm, you might wanna considerslowly upgrading the bits and pieces, and a few extra $ on the motherboard might not hurt, onboard gfx cards are pretty decent nowday
you shouldnt need to format your hdd for a hardware change.
Last edited by BenDover; Apr 13, 2012 at 05:37 PM.